Holiday Recovery.

Maybe your house looks something like mine right now. Or maybe you’re a super cleaner, and all the gifts, the wrappings, the trimmings are stashed away. Or maybe yours is far worse, toy parts everywhere, coffee cups still abandoned on endtables. Christmas always comes on with a rush, and then disappears. We leave the mess of gifts out for several days, clearing enough of a path to get to the windows but enjoying the chaos. Tomorrow, though, I think we’ll start to put stuff away. I was evidently a very good girl this year–food gifts alone included chocolate-covered pretzels, fancy tomatillo salsa, a new rice cooker, a cookbook based on bacon (Mr. Pea knows me well!) and a National Geographic volume on “Food Journeys.”

Today we’ve eaten the end of the leftover ham and turkey (except what’s in the freezer), and finished the lasagna Christmas night that I’d made for Christmas eve. There’s still apple pie in there from Mr. Pea’s mom, plus a pear cobbler I ended up making for Christmas day (I meant to leave some at my brother’s but was trying to get out the door and forgot). We’re at the point of maximum consumption, when the thought of pie begins to seem a little vile, and broccoli–not necessarily slathered with cheese (and bacon for good measure) seems like a nice thought. This morning instead of eating pie or cobbler for breakfast (always tempting), I made steel-cut oats. I had leftover Indian food for lunch (mostly spinach!) and tonight we’ll finish off the pasta sauce I made with the lasagna. Time to clean that fridge out, restock the healthier stuff, and take a long winter’s walk.